Brothers Reunited
by Swansongs1111
Summary: The memories of war slipped away, the residual trauma of loss was healed, and the bonds once thought broken were resealed. The brothers were reunited. Finally.


Slip, slip, slipping. He felt tugged away like a tissue from a box, limp and languid. Suddenly dropped on a bright white ground surrounded by gray mist that glimmered all around him.

"No!" he grasped reaching towards nothing, as the abyss settled all around him. He ran forward, or backwards, directions somehow fell away in existence. His hands were stretched forward as he tried to clutch for something tangible. Yet no matter the turn he took, no matter the path he chose, there was nothing before him; nothing but that gray shimmering mist.

He stilled finally. His shoulders trembled first and then a roaring ache ran through his chest, burning all the way through him, swallowing him whole.

Sirius pressed a trembling hand to his chest and curled into himself. He clamped his eyes shut only to find horrified green ones looking back at him. The eyes that had so long sought something unconditional, something familial. For too short a time those eyes had brightened with hope. But then, in that final moment, they turned in the betrayal of loss; of losing what he had so deeply yearned for and had barely been able to enjoy.

Both of them.

They had been robbed, reunited, only to have their hopes snatched away.

Sirius stumbled until he sat upon the ground, trapped by the weight of what he had left behind. His godchild, his friend, the hope of freedom.

That chasm he had long forced to hold together finally collapsed open. The horrors rushed him.

Their house in flames. _Oh please no. _

Shouting. Screaming. Searching.

_No._

Those glasses.

_Please. Please. _

_No._

He tried shaking him, tried to force all the powers his pureblood lineage afforded him into that lifeless form. _Get up. Please. _Again. Again. Again he tried.

Nothing.

His rattled mind heard a cry. _Lily. Harry. _

He clambered up the steps, taking two at a time and slammed the partially unhinged door open.

_No._

Her red hair splayed across the floor.

It knocked the remaining air from his lungs.

The collapsed man below the stairs had had one final hope. Save his wife. Save his child. Save his family.

His wife lay dead. How much he had loved her, sought her, dreamed of their life together. It was ended now.

The gurgled cry came again.

He looked up to those green eyes, that wild hair. The two were gone but they'd left their imprint behind.

_Harry. _He held him to his chest. Soothing the child, kindling the raging fire within himself.

He barely remembered handing his godson to the half-giant. Leaving behind the bike, leaving behind the last time he'd see them. _His family._

It would be worth it. To cut down the person who had taken from him; taken everything from him.

But instead they locked him in. And on the day they were placed in the ground, he was given over to the dementors. How he wished he was with them instead.

Then they came for hissoul. Taking it piece by piece, leaving only memories of houses in flames, lifeless bodies, friends gone, losing wars, lights ceasing, betrayals. Over. Over. Again.

The dementors could steal joy, light. They couldn't take rage, and rage could fuel so much and could endure for so long.

But time still twisted by in small jolted knots, snarled and snagging in painful bites.

Sometimes when the darkness took, he knew it was payment for his failure. _Forgive me._ He'd whisper to silent ghosts. _Forgive me. _

Even in freedom he'd been denied and that freedom became another prison, anchoring him to the walls of his beginnings. Those haunting, horrible beginnings, with servant heads hung upon mantles.

But those green eyes, that wild hair. He'd take his prison and save that young but growing, hopeful but weary, boy. The poor child had never even been able to pursue his mischievous heritage, life had stolen the levity of childhood.

He'd make sure what had been stolen would be returned, that his godson, the only thing that remained of his best mate, his fallen brother, would know the joy he'd been deprived of.

His jaw locked painfully now.

All those promises gone in a moment of frivolous vainglory; thinking without hesitation that the cut from his heritage drawn so many decades ago, would be strong enough to outrun the pernicious evil coiled in his cousin. It had not and here now he sat. No where.

Those green eyes haunted his eyelids. Had he seen his own horror in those eyes? The look his grey ones had held that Halloween night as he held his dead friend in his arms. Harry was not so much younger than he had been when he had found the boy's lifeless father.

Another agony for the boy to inherit.

Would he too be haunted by that anguished question: what was the point of all their magical abilities if you couldn't save the ones you loved?

Sirius peaked his burning eyes open and watched as the gray mist began to settle, to soften, to shift away. The pain was easing, the sadness was somehow quelling. He felt a tug to release what ached but he clenched his hands, unwilling to part with his guilt, promising to hold it forever in this abyss as a marker for the pain he had left for those he'd left behind.

It was quiet. So quiet. It was the sound of softness as the morning light first begins to brush the earth and awaken what has been sleeping.

Oh but his heart hurt. Sirius continued to hold a palm over the center of his pain. It was impossible to live with so much.

"You did good, mate."

Sirius shut his eyes once more, locking in the sound, the voice he'd just heard.

"You gave him everything he needed."

A hand firmly touched his shoulder and he felt a form, a form he'd always recognize, sit beside him.

"And now, Padfoot, you can finally rest. You're finally free."

Sirius allowed his eyes to open and his favorite smile was beaming back at him.

"_Prongs_."

Sirius jumped to his feet and grabbed James in the hug he'd been waiting for, for a decade and a half. James laughed and held on tight, holding his brother finally.

Time moved differently here and pain was not what it was down there. But the ache he'd held watching his friend suffer mercilessly, had gnawed at his being. The guilt his brother had carried, was far too much for any person to endure. But he had and he had done it for his son.

When they pulled apart James nudged him, "I kind of thought you'd be here sooner. Lily and I had a bet on it." He rolled his eyes upwards in annoyance, "So naturally she was right and won. Again."

Sirius beamed, "Prongs, mate. I can't tell you how happy I am to see you."

James' smile softened, "It's been too long, Padfoot."

Sirius' smile slipped and he looked behind him, as if seeking something, before turning back to James, "What of Harry? I've left him. James, Death Eaters were attacking us. Bellatrix," he rolled his eyes in frustration, ''that absolute rot of a hag, got me. But Harry's still there!"

The laughter had left James' face and a solemness settled in his young features. "Harry," he took a breath. "My son, is surrounded by an army of people who love him, who will protect him, who will keep him forward towards his destiny. Whatever that may be."

James paused before going on, "All those people. The Weasleys, Dumbledore, Mcgonagall, the Order. His friends. Remus."

Sirius gave a pained groan, "Moony."

The two men looked at each other in equal pain, knowing the full measure of sadness that would clobber their friend.

James continued. "They will give him all he needs for all the breaths he breathes on earth. That is all we can ask for. And if," he paused again, collecting himself.

Sirius held a hand to James' arm in comfort.

James gave a sad smile, "And if his life is short, we will be here to greet him, to love him. But no matter how this war ends, Harry will be okay. He has a family with him no matter where he goes."

Moisture sat in both their eyes. For the son one had been robbed of raising. For the godson the other had felt as his own.

They had made it to the other side, they were together finally and there was relief in that. But those they loved who remained, left strings attached to their souls, tugging along wherever they would go.

Sirius broke the silence, "So what happens now? Is this it?" He gestured to the vastness around them.

James grinned, "Just you wait, Padfoot. But we should get going, we don't want to keep Lily waiting."

He gave a thoughtful look. "Although time doesn't really exist here, so in theory her impatience shouldn't exist. Yet somehow," he laughed, "it does."

Sirius' eyes grew, "Lily." He shook his head in disbelief. They were both here. _Everyone_ would be here.

All the Order members who had fallen in the previous war, the people who had fallen in this one. Classmates, neighbors, professors, people he had missed so deeply in his bones.

James nodded with enthusiasm. "Yeah man. She's excited to see you," James tilted his head back and forth. "Mostly. She has some trepidations about our Marauderous reunion and all that entails."

A wicked grin sat upon James' face.

Excitement, a feeling Sirius had long thought dead, rose within his chest extinguishing the pain that had just lived there. He grinned back, "So how do we get there? Wherever there is?"

James nudged him and pointed aimlessly in front of them, "You have to say it."

Sirius looked at him confusion, "Say what?"

James laughed and wiggled his eyebrows, "You know!" He nudged Sirius again knowingly.

A slow smile flowed across the animagus' face. The decades of weariness slipped off his form. The loss, the imprisonment, the near extinguishing of his soul. It was ceased.

His face shifted to that old expression once deemed an exceptional annoyance by their favorite head of Gryffindor House. It was that smirk of inert mischief ready to spark into kinetic mayhem.

No more weights to hold it down, no more bars to lock him in.

Sirius turned to James who held a matching grin and a spark of anticipatory excitement.

Sirius returned his gaze forward and with mirth bounding within him, he said those sacred words, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

The mist ceased, the wall between worlds slipped, and the endlessness of joy settled before the two Marauders. The brothers were reunited and this world finally allowed for the freedom they had both been robbed of.

Sirius joined James in guardianship to those they loved whose lives continued and acted as the welcome for when they arrived.

Poor Remus was tackled upon his arrival. But like the brothers that had come before him, he shirked off the suffering, the agony that had tortured him for so long, and fell into the arms of the friends he had been so burdened with missing. James and Lily would coach him and Tonks as they watched their son grow from a distance, learning how to love him even from this place away.

The distance really wasn't so far as it seemed.

As time on earth drew on, their family regrew. And when the Boy Who Lived finally crossed that threshold, he found those guardians who'd whispered hope in his ear, given strength during times of fear, and given absolute love during those times alone.

They were all there.

Upon that welcoming embrace, Sirius looked into those green eyes and looked at that wild hair, he no longer saw a boy in devastation. The haunting yearning that had always lived behind those wired glasses was at last quieted and dissolved away.

The Marauders reclaimed their purpose of fellowship, laughter, and rascality, teaching their ways to the generations that joined them. And in so doing, the memories of war slipped away, the residual trauma of loss was healed, and the bonds once thought broken were resealed.

No more images of burning houses, no more lifeless forms, no more prison bars.

They were released.

They were free.

Together.


End file.
